SIDELIGHTS: Barbara Boxer has been a U.S. senator from the state of California for more than a decade and is the coauthor of two books, Strangers in the Senate: Politics and the New Revolution of Women in America, a memoir she wrote with her daughter, Nicole Boxer, and a novel, with coauthor Mary-Rose Hayes, titled A Time to Run. A Time to Run focuses on a potential scandal involving Ellen Downey, whose politician husband dies during a senate campaign. Ellen decides to take her husband's place and wins a seat in the U.S. Senate as a liberal Democrat. Ellen then comes across some damaging documents that could stop the nomination of an ultra-conservative Supreme Court nominee. This ultimately leads to a showdown with her ex-lover in college, Greg Hunter, who is now a conservative journalist. The novel recounts the past friendship between Ellen, her husband, and Greg as the present-day story leads to a confrontation between Ellen and Greg that could ultimately redefine the balance of ideological power in the U.S. Supreme Court.

The author "brings an insider's knowledge of politics to this compelling novel of friendship, idealism, and corruption," wrote Vanessa Bush in Booklist. A Publishers Weekly contributor also noted that "Boxer brings been-there nuance to the backbiting, hazardous personal disclosures and naked power mongering of California and Washington politics." In a review in the Los Angeles Times, Patt Morrison commented that the "book is grounded in political realities that attentive newspaper readers will recognize."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, September 1, 2005, Vanessa Bush, review of A Time to Run, p. 5.

Los Angeles Times, November 5, 2005, Patt Morrison, review of A Time to Run.

New York Times, November 6, 2005, Rachael Donadio, "Political Fictions," review of A Time to Run.

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